“Our duty in the East is not Germanization in the former sense of the term, that is, imposing the German language and the German laws upon the population, but to ensure that only people of pure German blood should inhabit the East.”
This negation of Germanization is not new. However, falling from the lips of the Reich Führer of the SS, acting as Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of the Volkstum, it becomes an order. Such is the exact meaning of these words.
The rejection of the idea of germanizing the population of the occupied territories, and the assertion that the East should be inhabited only by people of pure German blood, signified, in practice, the mass extermination of Soviet citizens, their spoliation and their deportation to slave labor, the annihilation of centuries of Russian culture, and the destruction of our cities and villages. I shall confine myself to what I have just said, as the same theme, or rather themes, have already been elaborated and will be presented to the Tribunal by my colleagues.
On 22 June 1941, after prolonged preparations, the German fascist hordes hurled themselves on the Soviet Union. One hundred and seventy divisions, concentrated on the borders of the Soviet Union from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, started the invasion.
The military problems connected with the attack were formulated in Plan Barbarossa:
“The German Army should be ready, even prior to the end of the war with England, to defeat Soviet Russia by operating with lightning speed.
“To this end the Army will have to utilize all units at its disposal, with the sole reservation that the territories occupied must be adequately protected against all unexpected eventualities.”
Plan Barbarossa foresaw the necessity of annihilating the Red Army, of cutting off the possible retreat towards the interior of all Red Army units still fit for battle and of permitting the German fascist invaders speedily to reach a line of combat which would place the land of Germany beyond the range of the Soviet Air Force.
As an ultimate aim, Plan Barbarossa provided for the strengthening of the Astrakhan-Archangel line, the destruction by bombardment of the Ural industries, the seizure of Leningrad and Kronstadt, and finally, the capture of Moscow.
THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a good time to break off?